Two Musical Talents Join the John J. Cali School of Music
Posted in: Cali News
The University is pleased to welcome two new members to the campus community: Robert Cart, director of the John J. Cali School of Music, and Ken Lam, director of Orchestral Studies.
Robert Cart is the former dean of the College of Fine and Performing Arts at Rowan University in Glassboro, New Jersey as well as a professional operatic tenor and flutist. Although he only joined the University in August 2011, Cart has already drawn up his list of top priorities: raising national awareness about the school, putting a greater focus on chamber music, and teaching music students to think like entrepreneurs.
Ken Lam is a rising star in the world of conducting and winner of the prestigious 2011 Memphis International Conducting Competition. However, his career trajectory as a conductor has been anything but traditional. He started piano lessons at age three and the violin followed a couple of years later, but high finance cast its spell as well. After earning a degree in economics at Cambridge University, he became a lawyer and spent more than 10 years working in Hong Kong and London for an international law firm as a specialist in asset finance.
When the rehearsal conductor for the Hong Kong Chamber Orchestra, of which he was a member in his spare time, didn’t show up one day, Lam filled in. That fortuitous occasion started him on the path that would bring him full circle to the fulfillment of his earliest ambitions.